


phantom limb

by killdoll



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Atem being vulnerable and ghost cuddles it's a good time, Atem is overprotective, Cuddling & Snuggling, Hospitalization, M/M, Puzzleshipping - Relationship - Freeform, call 911 im baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 10:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15532728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killdoll/pseuds/killdoll
Summary: In the hospital after the fire where Yuugi reassembled the Millennium Puzzle, Yuugi and his Other Self have a heart-to-heart.(Puzzleshipping, set during anime canon, attempted ghost cuddling.)





	phantom limb

**Author's Note:**

> YU-GI-OH! FANDOM: YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANY TIME YOU LIKE, BUT YOU CAN _NEVER_ LEAVE.
> 
>  
> 
> It's been _years_ , folks. I never expected to find myself here again, but here we are. I'm on a DM kick as I'm currently rewatching it, and it's been A TRIP. Puzzleship or bust, as always, forever and ever amen.
> 
>  
> 
> (I've shipped these two for exactly half my life, I realized the other day. That's... something.)
> 
>  
> 
> As always, this fic was edited by the eternally lovely [Jay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaystrifes/pseuds/jaystrifes)!! Go show them some love!

The summer settling over Domino sizzles the asphalt, making mirages that have people confusing heatwaves for holograms. It might just be the card game fever that’s gripped the city, but the internet and the local news are abuzz with claims of imagined Blue Eyes White Dragons and Happy Lovers.

On his way to visit Yuugi in the hospital, lugging along a Calpis ice bar from the convenience store that’s mostly melted sugar and soft drink by the time he makes it there, Jounouchi counts three such illusions while waiting patiently on the corner for the crosswalk light to turn— like he’s a law-abiding citizen, not a rule-breaking delinquent. Kids in backwards baseball caps and blue cotton shorts duck around him in a game of tag that’s spilled out of the bounds of a nearby playground. On an overturned crate, a boy who looks to be in about the sixth grade plays Gremlin in attack mode, totally overwhelming his opponent. Jounouchi smiles as he passes by, pats the shoulder of the loser in a consolatory gesture.

Yuugi thanks Jounouchi for the ice cream, and when he peels back the plastic and finds the popsicle melted underneath, he just laughs and licks the cool syrup where it’s already run down his thin wrist to his elbow like a vein, making Jounouchi look the other way. A fan in the corner between the wall and the ceiling circulates air through the room with a serene hum. Jounouchi sits down backwards on a chair next to where Anzu’s leaning against the wall, and then he and Anzu wonder aloud where Honda is.

Although only Yuugi knows it, the Other Yuugi is there, too, a trick of the light on the opposite side of Anzu. Fleetingly, their eyes meet, and Yuugi smiles.

Both of Yuugi’s hands are mummified wrists-to-fingertips in gauze. He finishes what he can of the ice cream and Jounouchi takes the stick and wrapper from him and chucks them in the bin. Jounouchi is impressed that Yuugi is capable of manipulating the ice cream himself, thinks it must be a sign his hands are healing well, and tells him so. Yuugi smiles impishly, holds up his hands, and curls his fingers like Kuriboh’s claws. The ice cream bar marks the first time he’s used them on his own since his hospitalization.

When Yuugi first came to the hospital, he had third-degree burns on his palms and fingertips from touching the Puzzle in the heat of the fire. On contact with the superheated gold, his skin burst into blister and cooked down to the nerve. He’s been in the hospital for a week, first for smoke inhalation, then for burn treatment. Just two days ago, Jounouchi had to count cards and open booster packs for him when Yuugi wanted to update his deck. Underneath the bandages, scar tissue has begun to blossom and creep like snakeskin over what was once clean and healthy and smooth. The doctors are debating the pros and cons of a skin graft, but Yuugi just wants out of the hospital as soon as possible. Even with Jounouchi diligently bringing him the handouts, he’s missed more than enough school to have him playing catch-up for weeks.

Jounouchi is good at boosting the morale of a room, and by the time Honda bursts in with a mouthful of dirt and apologies— the bike he borrowed from his _senpai_ broke down— everyone is smiling and laughing. Yuugi and Jounouchi are testing Yuugi’s new deck, the cards laid out on the white sheets, and Anzu is playing with Yuugi’s hair, making little plaits of the blond locks that fall down in front. Honda leaves a card (which seems to be, incredibly, from Kaiba and Mokuba) on the table next to the flowers that Bakura brought yesterday and they stay until the sunset dyes the sky creamsicle orange and a nurse comes and shoos them all out.

* * *

They decide to go for the skin graft, but the operation has to be scheduled weeks in advance and there’s no longer any reason to keep Yuugi in the hospital for the interim. Starting tomorrow, he’ll be discharged until the day of his surgery, and then he’ll be out for good. He just has to stay one more night.

Yuugi’s itching to get the bandages off, to see what’s become of his hands. They still hurt, but he can feel them more or less the same as normal, now, although he thinks his fingertips might be a little numb— could just be the tightly wound bandages cutting off circulation, though. At night after lights out, he stays awake with his eyes open, staring straight ahead and thinking.

The Other Yuugi is present in Yuugi’s peripheral, hovering awkwardly with his legs crossed over the metal railing of the hospital bed. He’s been doing this since the fire, manifesting just to stand guard.

He was not this vigilant before. He rarely watched over Yuugi so attentively. He was able to sense when Yuugi was in danger, and left it at that. But ever since the accident— and Yuugi’s been keeping track— there hasn’t been a single moment where he hasn’t been here. Almost always in his materialized form, and constantly alert and watchful for the slightest hint of danger, even during the few times he’s rested in the Puzzle. So far, he’s been able to do nothing but let medical professionals fuss with Yuugi while he looks on invisibly.

That’s not exactly true. A few times now, Yuugi has fallen asleep and woken up tired and confused in his soul room, finding his Other piloting the body. Yuugi thinks he’s been trying to feel the pain for him.

The Other Yuugi speaks— the first time he’s actually spoken words to Yuugi since the accident. “They said they’re going to heal your hands,” he says.

“My hands are already healing on their own,” Yuugi says, “they’re just going to replace the scars with natural skin. Which is alright, I guess,” he says, his voice getting a little lower, “even though I kind of wanted to keep them.”

“Why do you want your hands to stay scarred?” the Other Yuugi asks. Yuugi smiles a little wistfully and brings both hands up into the space between him and the Other Yuugi, flexing his fingers one by one. Each movement sends a small shock of pain through his system. Proof he’s alive. The Other Yuugi watches the ritual in silence.

It takes Yuugi a while to come up with the answer he wants to give. “Scars are always proof of something. They tell a story,” he says, and leaves it at that. He leans back against the pillow. “Do you have any scars, Other Me? They might hold a clue about your past.”

“I can’t even remember what I look like for sure,” says the Other Yuugi with a wry smile. “That’s the only reason I’m borrowing your appearance, after all. You’re not particularly good looking.”

“Hey,” says Yuugi, grinning and making a swipe at the other. It goes right through him, as all touch does. Yuugi’s smile softens and he lays his fist down in his lap.

“Even if we never get your memories back, you can keep borrowing my appearance,” Yuugi says. “My memories, too. My identity. Whatever you want. You’ve helped me out so much. I’d do anything for you.”

“Thank you, Partner,” says the Other Yuugi stiffly, tense and out of his depth.

Yuugi is looking at his hands. “I’d die for you. I’ve just learned that myself.”

“Partner!” says the Other Yuugi with a start. All of the energy in the room sucks into one spot behind the Other Yuugi’s forehead. The hairs on the back of Yuugi’s neck stand up like an army of needles and goosebumps rise tall and proud all over his chest and down his arms.

When he forces himself to look into the Other Yuugi’s eyes they are wide and wild and shimmering wetly. His whole presence is quivering, a shaking emulsion of light.

“I don’t ever want you to do anything like that again,” the Other Yuugi says. His voice is trembling, worse than when he cursed Pegasus for engineering Kaiba’s false ghost, worse than Yuugi has ever heard it.

Yuugi remains very still and silent, then nods. The Other Yuugi seems to calm down a little.

But when he looks down and away from Yuugi and keeps talking, his voice is still shaking. “That... was the worst thing I’ve ever been though,” he says. “I was still there, Partner. Even though they broke the Puzzle I was still _there_ , and I could see you and I could see everything but I couldn’t _do_ anything about it. Our connection was broken and I couldn’t take over or reach out to your heart. You couldn’t even hear me. I told you... I begged you to stop and leave me and get out and you didn’t hear me...”

The tears spill over. His crying is neither entirely undignified nor entirely dignified. It just is what it is, no noise, just the Other Yuugi blinking and suddenly one, two tears sliding down his nose. It’s the first time Yuugi has ever seen the Other Yuugi cry, and in this moment the Other Yuugi does not look like a more confident, mature version of Yuugi himself, but like a sad, scared young boy. Yuugi wants to wrap him in the kind of hug that blocks all evils and misfortunes out, if only for a moment. But the world will not let him. In his heart, Yuugi silently swears to himself that he will get his Other his own identity and body back, whatever the cost.

“I’m sorry I put you through that,” Yuugi says. Instead of attempting a hug, which he thinks at this point will just confuse the Other, he reaches out and lets his hand hover over the apparition of the other’s hand. The Other Yuugi looks at it, staying still. “But I want you to know: I wouldn’t have left you.”

“Partner...”

Yuugi looks at him dead on. “You’re an important member of our friend group. An important friend,” says Yuugi. “You’re a part of me, but...” He stops as if in thought, then seems to decide something and presses onward. “But you’re your own person too. You’re as much my friend as Jounouchi and Anzu and Honda and Bakura are. I wouldn’t have left any of them behind. I wouldn’t have left you.”

The Other Yuugi bristles as if to say something, but Yuugi is relentless. “Say our positions were reversed. Would you have left me?”

There’s nothing the Other Yuugi can say to that. His gaze falls from Yuugi’s and wanders along the railing as, after a long silence, he finds his words again.

“I still don’t like it when you’re in danger,” he begins slowly— clumsily. “Back there, when you were in danger and I couldn’t help you... it’s my job to protect you, don’t try to say it’s not. I felt so...”

He struggles to say this.

“So _powerless_ ,” he says finally, spitting it out like a dirty word. “I can’t remember ever feeling that way before. It’s the worst feeling in the world. It happened because I didn’t want to come out of the Puzzle and reveal my true identity. I was afraid. If I’d just taken over like I should have, maybe we could have gotten out of there a little faster. Maybe Bandit Keith wouldn’t have broken the Puzzle. Maybe there wouldn’t have been a fire. Instead I was a coward, and—”

“Other Me,” Yuugi interrupts. The Other Yuugi is caught off guard by how dauntless his voice is, falls silent. “You made the right decision.”

Yuugi really, really wishes he could hug him. “I trust your judgment,” he continues. “If you thought it wasn’t safe for you to come out, it probably wasn’t. I don’t regret anything I did. If the same thing happened, I would do the exact same thing all over again.”

The Other Yuugi is struck speechless. He doesn’t know how he got this lucky. His partner is stronger than him, he realizes; stronger in the ways that matter, he thinks. He worries that that strength will be his downfall.

“I love you,” says Yuugi, not thinking about it, as natural in that moment as breathing out, “but I want to rest now, Other Me.”

The Other Yuugi doesn’t mention it. Instead he says “I don’t want to leave you,” and it’s the bravest thing he could have said. It’s petulant and childish and stubborn and true. “I haven’t left you... since the fire. I’ve been by your side this whole time.”

Yuugi thinks about it for a moment, then comes to a solution in his mind. “Alright,” he says. “We can rest, but you don’t have to leave. I’ll teach you something good.” He pats the space in the bed next to him.  

The Other Yuugi looks at him warily, because the last time he saw Yuugi with quite this look in his eyes he was definitely Up To Something, but Yuugi just beams at him and pats the bed again. The Other Yuugi comes up to float above the bed closer to Yuugi. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Lie down, like I’m doing,” says Yuugi. “No, not like that. Pretend like you’re actually lying on the bed.” After some confusion and demonstrating and maneuvering they figure out how to make it work with the Other Yuugi’s incorporeality; both of them on their sides like sardines, the Other Yuugi with his back to Yuugi. Yuugi wraps his arm around the Other Yuugi’s middle— where the apparition of his middle is— and holds it in the air there.

“Now what?”

“Now we sleep.”

Holding his arm up as though he’s holding the incorporeal Other Yuugi is going to get very uncomfortable very soon. Any nurse who walks in to check on Yuugi will definitely think he’s crazy, clearly spooning an invisible partner, and the second Yuugi truly falls asleep, the precarious balance of their cuddling will collapse. But it’s the best they can do for now, and it’s worth it, Yuugi thinks, for the way he can tell the Other Yuugi is gradually calming down.

After a few minutes in which the only sound is that of Yuugi’s slow, steady breathing, Yuugi speaks up, his lips brushing against where the back of the Other Yuugi’s neck would be. Maybe it’s the Other Yuugi’s imagination, but he thinks he can feel the touch, and he shivers.

“Sorry,” Yuugi says, voice honeyed with sleep. “It’s not really the same when you can’t feel the other person there.”

“No, Partner. I can feel it,” says the Other Yuugi. His voice is, for once, very small. “You’re warm. It’s... good.”

“That’s good,” Yuugi says, half on a yawn, getting comfortable again. He’s glad his partner can’t smell him, because he’s pretty sure his day-three star and moon pajamas are getting pretty ripe.

Honestly, he thinks as he starts to drift off, this is the ideal situation.

* * *

The Other Yuugi _can’t_ sleep. Not in this form. Not that he’s ever tried, but he can’t remember ever having rested properly anywhere but inside the Puzzle. The most he can do is lie down and be very still.

He doesn’t think he was made for things this gentle. There’s no way to be snuggled in a dignified manner. This simple gesture of affection and... what’s the word— intimacy? Intimacy of a type from his Partner is not a game to win or a challenge to overcome. There are no strategies to implement, no opponent to triumph over. He’s not even sure what to do with his hands.

But being held by his Partner and lying here quietly like this makes the world itself feel smaller. Like maybe everything outside the four walls of this room with its humming fan and its soft blue darkness and his Partner and his Partner’s soft breathing, which is smoothing out into that easy rhythm that comes just before sleep, doesn’t matter quite as much as it seems sometimes.

It makes the Other Yuugi feel small, too. But small in a good way, which he hadn’t known was possible before his Partner.

(He hadn’t known anything, before his Partner.)

The Other Yuugi doesn’t have a physical heart in this form, but nevertheless it feels as though his heart is beating a little faster, for whatever reason. It’s the same feeling he gets during a duel, that excitement, the desire to know what’s going to happen next. He’s not sure why it’s happening now, of all times, in this quiet moment that is otherwise so calm he wants to weep, but he doesn’t mind that it is. He thinks he feels it the most when he’s close to his Partner like this, and realizing that makes the feeling even bigger.

The Other Yuugi thinks his Partner is so fucking brave and big and bright. He thinks he would do anything to protect his Partner from any danger and that he himself doesn’t deserve to be protected by someone so kind he’s a danger to himself and others. He hopes his hands heal all the way better not for his own sake but for his Partner’s and he hopes his Partner will go on using his hands to do things that make the Other Yuugi second guess his assumption that humans all need to be punished. He thinks that he would be a lump of molten metal on the floor of a burned-out warehouse if not for the boy who now has his arm wrapped around him, despite the fact that there is nothing to wrap his arm around.

And he thinks that although luck has always been on his side for as long as he can remember, this must be the luckiest he’s ever gotten: that his Partner was the one who solved the Puzzle and received him.

His Partner is close. The Other Yuugi doesn’t know if it’s the strength of their bond or his mind playing tricks on him, but he swears he can feel the faintest ghosts of Yuugi’s touches. A hint of the comforting press of his Partner’s hand against his stomach, his Partner’s arm around his side. His soft baby-face phantoming against the nape of his neck, the persistent tickling of his breath.

The only thing is, he can’t smell him. The Other Yuugi has no sense of smell in this form, and it’s the only thing ruining the illusion of the moment. The Other Yuugi tries to remember what Yuugi smells like. It’s a little difficult, even though they share a body; the Other Yuugi doesn’t consciously smell himself, after all. But through careful quiltwork, the Other Yuugi is able to patch together an olfactory image from the memory of passing sensations in the other’s body.

It smells like home.

The Other Yuugi spends the whole night that way, listening to his Partner breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading until the end!
> 
>  
> 
> If you enjoyed the fic, leaving a kudos or comment is muy appreciated! Or better yet, go check me out on [Tumblr](https://spinzaku.sadayuki.jp/) and if you like what you see, maybe follow? I'm getting back into the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom after an extremely long hiatus, and I don't really have any Yu-Gi-Oh! friends! I would love to make some!!


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